In all, Republicans have cast 87,000 more absentee ballots than Democrats. Democrats have cast 220,000 more in-person early votes
Using the GMU numbers (and there are other numbers that differ from them), Democrats had a cumulative lead as high as 363,000 ballots in 2008, or about 8 percentage points. Now, that Democrat lead has been cut to 3 points, or 133,000 — and not just because of the shortened early voting period.
In other words, Obama’s ’08 margin has already been wiped out because of Republicans gains in early voting. That’s without even accounting for any changes in voter preferences, just party registration.